


Barbershop on the Front Lines

by accidentallyanoctopus



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Barber Dave, Brief mention of hate crimes but like in one sentence, Dave and Klaus both being in love with eachother but they're big stupid, Internalized Homophobia, Intricate Rituals, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Tenderness, Vietnam, Vietnam War, gay author, hair cutting, repressed homosexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 12:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18282596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentallyanoctopus/pseuds/accidentallyanoctopus
Summary: Two times that Dave cuts Klaus' hair, both before they fall in love, and after.





	Barbershop on the Front Lines

**Author's Note:**

> So you know how there's a barbershop in Heaven? What if Dave's civilian job was being a barber? What if he gave his squad free haircuts? What if I'm gay and completely out of control?

Snick, snip. Snip, snip, snick, snip.

Klaus sits in a camp chair, trying to keep his head level as his hair is cut. Curls and clumps of hair, matted with god-knows-what, rain down upon the dirty towel draped over his shoulders like a bib. He's still impressed how they got away with dragging a full-length mirror into their tent without any of the higher-ups seeing. Not to mention that usually anyone with even a mildly sharp object can stay approximately three miles away from his head, thank you very much. But he'd gladly have his entire ear chopped off to feel this particular man's hands in his hair.

One of the many things that he's learned about his squadmates is that, unlike his junkie ass, most of them had civilian jobs back home in the states. Logan was a mechanic; Worth, a pediatrician. Zedderburg worked for a landscaping company, and Fitzpatrick was an elementary school teacher. Klaus had always assumed, with his very limited knowledge of the Vietnam War, that it had been all 18 year-olds charging to their deaths, but apparently even by 1968 they were running out of those. He isn't even the oldest member of his squad. Anyway, back home in Detroit, Private First Class Dave Katz was a barber, and in Vietnam, he gives free haircuts.

“You sure you aren't Jewish, Hargreeves?” Dave jokes as he snips off another curl. “You do have an uncanny resemblance to my cousin Hester, after all.”

The other men laugh, and clearly Klaus is supposed to be embarrassed, but his sense of shame died a long, long time ago, and he hasn't been successful in locating its ghost.

“I told you, Katz, I'm adopted. I've never met my birth mom.”

“Oh, shit, I'm sorry, Klaus.”

Klaus wouldn't ever admit it to the other guys (after all, this is 1968), but he really really likes it when Dave uses his first name. Especially since, in a place where everyone calls eachother by surname, it has a particular intimacy to it. He shouldn't read into that, shouldn't get his hopes up for nothing, but he can't help himself.

“S'okay. Besides, can you imagine someone giving birth to my ugly mug and saying 'oh yeah, that's definitely something I wanna keep'?”

His self-deprecating joke gets the desired reaction from everyone but Dave, unfortunately. The other man just sighs and continues to chop away at Klaus' hair, his non-dominant hand reaching around the back of his neck to steady him. Klaus has never been the praying type, but he hopes to God Dave doesn't feel him shiver at the feeling of callused fingers touching him. Or that, if he does, he doesn't mind.

Dave, on the other hand, hopes that Klaus can't feel how much he's shaking right now. This should be easy for him, second nature even, but nothing is ever easy for Dave when it comes to Klaus Hargreeves.

Ever since this beautiful, tragic, confusing man literally appeared out of nowhere, Dave has been struggling with a part of himself he thought he'd repressed into nonexistence. Or at the very least, could pretend didn't exist.

He became a barber not because of, but in spite of his homosexuality. After all, back home, most of his clients were older men and literal children. He didn't go into the profession like some sort of pervert, getting off on touching other men, he went into it because he enjoys taking care of people. It's just his rotten luck that if people knew about one particular part of his personality, they'd probably stone him to death in front of city hall. He's seen similar things happen, or heard about them on the news, watched as people he'd like to call his friends laughed and jeered at the more obviously “fruity” around them.

Dave tries to focus on the task at hand, on making Klaus look presentable, on removing the matted dirty clumps of hair he's come to associate with this place. But Klaus is being his usual erratic self, wriggling around, making self-deprecating jokes that Dave has never found all that funny, playing the fool to get the attention he clearly wasn't given enough of as a child. It breaks his heart, really; Klaus deserves the whole world, not some pitiful corner of it where he can sneak off to do the ridiculous amount of drugs he apparently requires in order to function. Dave wishes he could tell him that without blowing his cover.

It's so easy to miss the signals, honestly, to interpret tenderness as utilitarianism, empathy as politeness. So that's what Klaus and Dave do, because how dare they hope for anything more when life has repeatedly refused to give them even the bare minimum?

It's five months later, and once again, Dave is cutting Klaus' hair, but almost everything else has changed. Instead of a tent, they're in a shabby motel room somewhere in Saigon, and instead of a towel wrapped around Klaus' shoulders, it's a bedsheet. But those are just minor details compared to what has changed between the two men.

The awkward flirtations between Klaus and Dave have blossomed into a sweet intimacy, touches that were once utilitarian becoming affectionate in nature. So the hand on the back of Klaus' neck now includes a thumb rubbing gentle circles into the side of it.

“That feels really nice, Dave,” Klaus mumbles, not bothering to hide the pleasant shiver that travels down his spine. He now knows quite well that his fellow soldier won't mind in the slightest.

“I'm glad, sweetheart, but you have to keep your head straight.” Dave chuckles. “That's the only part of you I need to be straight, though.”

The first time he cut Klaus' hair, Dave wouldn't have dared make a joke like that. Wouldn't have even considered it. But the words in a language neither man speaks, tattooed upon the back of one of them, speak far more than either of them have to. “Klaus loves Dave.” And if Klaus can freely admit he loves Dave, well, Dave can do the same for Klaus. And even if, like Dave says, Klaus deserves the whole world, he's perfectly happy with just this tiny slice of it.

 

 


End file.
